Giza

I've been asking Stephen for a cat from the moment we got married. Eight and a half years later, Lillian made it happen.

His name is Giza which means Darkness in Swahili. He's been very shy but came out of his shell yesterday. I am so excited. 

In other news, my nose has been itching like crazy. I'm choosing to believe it is a coincidence. 

#StandForLife

It's been almost six years since Stephen and I started trying to conceive. I feel the timer is still running because I don't know  we will ever truly stop. 

When someone asks me how many children I have I say one, because I don't want to be that "weird" person who counts her lost pregnancy in her tally. I am wrong for this and giving into societies pressures when I don't stand up for my first child. 

The moment I saw the two lines on the test, the joy I felt, the love in my heart was no different than the joy and love felt the moment we saw Lillian on the ultrasound screen in her birth mother's womb and then again the joy and love we felt the moment she was physically handed to us. 

It's not only the joy and love but the pain and anguish in losing them both that was the same. I'll never forget the moment Dr. Vineyard stopped talking while looking at the ultrasound screen and the moment sitting in iHop, after a day of waiting for a follow up meeting with the birth parents that it became apparent the meeting would not come; Lillian was gone. 

So I trust, when I stand before my Savior and bow to worship Him, seeing my first child in His arms, the overwhelming astonishment, gratitude and wonderment will too be the same as the day Lillian came back to life for us and we learned she was coming home to our forever family. 

My Children

One grew under my heart; one grew in it. 

One waits in heaven having never reached birth, loved just as much as the one who walks Earth. 

Here Again

Stephen and I love Lillian so much and continue to live in amazement everyday with her. Right after she came home to us I cannot tell you how liberating it was to have my prayers answered and to truly for the first time in four years and four months have no clue what cycle day I was on and not only that, to not care!  

But now it has somewhat changed. I feel guilty for it. I feel guilty for even wanting another child. Lillian is our answered prayer and she is enough and will be enough but the longing for her to have a sibling is still there, for us to have another child to call our own. I am again aware of my cycle day and the fact that I am not ovulating. Truthfully Lillian is so amazing that if we were a normal couple and could conceive we probably would have started trying for another when she was six months old.  

This time it is different. The pain is more of a dull pain and the desire isn't all consuming but it is there. So please would you pray for us?  Pray God would either do a miracle and open my womb OR another miracle and bring us another baby through adoption. I've seen and experienced first hand what God can do and how he can answer prayers in big ways, so I'm stepping out in faith and praying big that God will drop another baby in our lap. However that might happen and whatever that might look like, all glory and praise is and will be to Him, even if he says no. 

T minus Two Days

Two days.  Two days left to snuggle my baby.  Why did I sign up for this?  How did I do this last year?  The three letter answer, GOD.  So Heavenly Father, step in now because this momma's heart is breaking and it's only two days away.

She's Too Cute!

Baby Bumps

My reaction to baby bumps these days is usually pretty no eventful. I don't run from them or despise them. But lately I have been feeling sad just wondering what I would look like with one. What would it feel like?  Would I just be fat all over?  

How grateful I am that I don't run from them anymore!

Full Circle at Dr. Vineyard's Office

I had an appointment at Dr. Vineyard's today for a sinus infection.  I took Lillian with me and we sat in room 5 and waited.  It was nap time and she was having fun not sleeping.  After I got my diagnosis confirmed, and was waiting for my scripts, I sang to her and she finally drifted to sleep.  

All of a sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks and the tears began to flow as I saw Lillian's life come full circle right before my eyes.  It was in this very chair, roughly a year and five months ago, I sat and saw my precious baby for the first time: her beautiful head formed in her birthmom's womb, her arms and legs moving about.  Man, how much transpired from that moment of first seeing her on the ultrasound, until the moment I held her for the first time, to this moment holding her in the very room where it all began.  

Even if it had not turned out the way it did.  God is Good.  God is Faithful.  And His Creations are Beautiful!